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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "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 my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," 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 someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

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

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists 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.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly 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 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important 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 comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool 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 just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," 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 photo to someone," said Jess.

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