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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your standard tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

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

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to 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 adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of 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 share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on 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.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"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.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable 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.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

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

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled 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 her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the victims 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 without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.