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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me 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 accountant giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated 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 images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

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

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.