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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared 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 up for debate," 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 beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily 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, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is reinforced 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 really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, 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 solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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