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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

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

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

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

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed 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 extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

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

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important 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 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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