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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality 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 my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

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

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined 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 exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience 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 expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this 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 reinforced so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

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