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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime 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 indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am 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.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

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 ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting 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 decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service 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 a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform 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'," recalled Jess.

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

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