BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard startup entrepreneur. Following repeated instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.
"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.
Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.
This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.
The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.
It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year.
Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.
"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."
Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.
"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.
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 creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.
She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.
Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.
When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.
This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive 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, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in 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.
"This technology 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 new system," said Madelaine.
"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.
She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.
An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.
"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.
She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."
TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.
"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.
She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.
"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.
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