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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, 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 practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," 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 welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, 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 survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details 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 talks with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology 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 new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

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

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance 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 not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.