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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"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 used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident 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 advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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