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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These 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," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see 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 my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me 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 described.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, 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 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.