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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

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

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, 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 uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently 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 bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" 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 networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, 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 screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service 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 live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid 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 preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend 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 response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated 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 her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform 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 was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.