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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," 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 know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.