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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical tech founder. After repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently 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 gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is viewed 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 digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing 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 data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is really important 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, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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