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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since 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 earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with 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 said.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality 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 being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years 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 gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, 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 understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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 viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid 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 perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated 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 shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape 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 shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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