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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

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

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking 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 UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "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 respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined 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 used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks 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 covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one platform has adopted 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 is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable 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 deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, 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 shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

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