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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims 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 noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact 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 an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool 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 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 youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' 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 offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.