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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators 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 impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect 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 in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional 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 confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand 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 a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker 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 means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing 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.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use 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 partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

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 addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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