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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for a solution.

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

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

This represents a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from 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 intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view 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 up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe 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 bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into 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 service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology 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," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience 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 believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' 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 emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, 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 eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.