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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, 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 perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know 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 know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform 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 undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company 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 added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for 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 self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "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 always be where the blame is," she affirmed.