ngCordova file_uri to base64

I'm trying to use ngCordova's camera plugin (http://ngcordova.com/docs/plugins/camera/) to get pictures from my iphone and send it to my server. The backend developer wants me to encode it to base64. my data model looks like this 

[{image_name:"foo", link: //base64 string}]

this is what my code looks like

$scope.getPictureFromGallery = function() {  $cordovaCamera.getPicture(options).then(function(imageURI) {


     $scope.image = imageURI;


    }, function(err) {
      // error
    });

  };

the documentation states that you can just set the destinationType to get the proper results.

module.controller('PictureCtrl', function($scope, $cordovaCamera) {

  document.addEventListener("deviceready", function () {

    var options = {
      quality: 50,
      destinationType: Camera.DestinationType.DATA_URL, // <== HERE
      sourceType: Camera.PictureSourceType.CAMERA,
      allowEdit: true,
      encodingType: Camera.EncodingType.JPEG,
      targetWidth: 100,
      targetHeight: 100,
      popoverOptions: CameraPopoverOptions,
      saveToPhotoAlbum: false
    };

    $cordovaCamera.getPicture(options).then(function(imageData) {
      var image = document.getElementById('myImage');
      image.src = "data:image/jpeg;base64," + imageData; // <== HERE is how you create the actual string to send to server
    }, function(err) {
      // error
    });

  }, false);
});

I have a complete working example here https://github.com/aaronksaunders/dcww/blob/master/www/js/services.js#L39