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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, 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 embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope 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 trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt 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 added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled 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 just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

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

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse 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 affirmed.