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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

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

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact 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 an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, 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 view it similarly 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 an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform 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 screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience 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 believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on 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 reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.