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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"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 novel use 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 expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for 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 emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing 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 only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

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