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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed 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.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents a significant shift from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with 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 consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, 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 working as a dominatrix, mainly 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 treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

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

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within 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 discussions with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid 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 potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response 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, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, 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 town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.