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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average startup entrepreneur. After multiple instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

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

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put 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 negotiable," she added. "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 my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently 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 of my own volition," she described.

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

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand 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 a lot of sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded 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 screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in the film industry, 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.

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

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic 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 a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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