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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world 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 report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, 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 working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am 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.

"Some believe it's strange 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 remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator 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 insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive 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, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in talks with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed 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 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she believed 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 inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened 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 leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to 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 victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.