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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

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

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality 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 my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure 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 experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television 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 company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial 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 vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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