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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly 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 founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media 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 digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application 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 said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame 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 a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, 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 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 tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

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