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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"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 where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker 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 ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert 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 is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 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'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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