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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your typical tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

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

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. 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, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, 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 then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research 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 networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing 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 legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has implemented 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 live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm 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 added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image 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 reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated 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 images of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

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

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.