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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image 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 up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.