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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.