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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors 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 noted.

"I expect 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 then shared where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, 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 working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand 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 viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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 Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know 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 would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame 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 added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled 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 photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

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

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.