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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. After multiple instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

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

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes 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 founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, 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, as long as the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know 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 would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand 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 guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool 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 photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape 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 dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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