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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, 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 background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded 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 withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained 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 reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' 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 stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled 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 just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, 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 eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.