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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

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

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years 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 of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained 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 know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, 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," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional 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 somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

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

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.