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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

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 adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media 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 encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as 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 legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

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

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to 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 without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.