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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," said 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 recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put 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 fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering 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 personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know 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 took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by 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 invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand 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, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist 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

"This technology 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 new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' 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 fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.