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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," stated 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 recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," 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 an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy 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 flaws 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 many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand 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, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm 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 continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame 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 noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool 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 just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to 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.

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