Redefining digital safety: understanding image-based abuse

Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) represents a growing form of harm to women and girls online. This term refers to the act of generating or sharing intimate images without consent. Alongside circulating nude imagery, this includes deep fake nudification tools and criminal acts like upskirting and sextortion. In 2023, the Revenge Porn Helpline in the UK saw a 106% increase in reports compared to 2022. Since launching in 2015, the Helpline has helped remove over 305,000 non-consensual intimate images from the internet.

Within this context is growing critique of the amplified prevalence of IBSA in the sex industry. Misogynistic and uneducated attitudes towards sex workers causes clients to share content without consent, while adult platforms have historically lacked adequate protections to prevent IBSA. The anonymity, reach and ease of access that online spaces provide not only enable perpetrators to target victims on a larger scale but also amplify the harm. A recent report stresses that platforms enable IBSA through algorithms that reward incendiary content, alongside weak moderation and inadequate responses to reports. This allows image-based abuse to spread rapidly, silences victims and perpetuates systemic gendered violence online.

Despite legislative progress, including the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 and provisions within the Online Safety Act 2023, the scale and complexity of IBSA continues to paint a deeply troubling picture of novel expressions of gender-based violence. Prevention, early intervention, victim-centred support and multi-agency collaboration are all critical to reducing harm and delivering justice. At Image Angel, we are on a mission to help both adult platforms and social media build effective prevention and traceability tools into their infrastructure. This mission begins with a deeply personal story.

Our founder’s story: from survivor to tech entrepreneur

Years ago, our founder Madelaine Thomas was a young mother seeking flexible work that allowed her to care for her child. Online sex work provided that opportunity and offered financial security, while also enabling her to build meaningful relationships with clients and champion sex-positive feminism.

However, the industry’s invisibility, entrenched stigma, and lack of labour protections also left her vulnerable to image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). The obstacles she faced in seeking justice and support were profound, but they ignited her activism and determination to drive social change. This led her to explore how technology could be repurposed to track and trace IBSA on digital platforms, with a clear goal: ensuring no one else felt as isolated or powerless as she once did. Today, Image Angel is a growing tech start-up providing digital tools that support survivors, protect victims and strengthen the wider response to tech-enabled violence.

How can technology be used to protect victims from tech-enabled abuse?

Technology plays a critical role in protecting victims and empowering them to respond effectively to IBSA. Survivors often face barriers to reporting, including shame, fear of being blamed, lack of evidence and the belief that nothing can be done. Research shows that fewer than 40% of victims report their experiences to platforms or authorities. This stresses the urgent need for tools that restore agency and support survivors in seeking justice.

Forensic watermarking technology can address this need by equipping victims with concrete, verifiable evidence. By embedding a hidden, tamper-proof identifier into content before distribution, the platform can be traced even if the material is copied, altered or scraped elsewhere. In addition, digital fingerprinting can assign a unique, anonymous hex identifier to each recipient, enabling leaks to be traced back to the specific account involved without revealing their real identity, while still allowing law enforcement or a platform to uncover it if a complaint is made.

This shifts the burden back to perpetrators and makes accountability achievable, even in jurisdictions where takedown mechanisms are weak or unavailable. Gender-based violence interventions like IBSA is complex and require a multifaceted approach, but it’s important to think about how increasing the certainty of consequences might modify behaviour before they escalate into crime.

The role of digital tools in preventing crime

Our recent whitepaper explores a comprehensive model of harm reduction. While no single tool can eliminate IBSA, technology can make it a far riskier and less appealing crime. Forensic watermarking technology plays a key role in prevention by undermining perpetrators’ sense of anonymity and by increasing the likelihood of detection, legal action and reputational harm.

This visibility shifts IBSA from a perceived low-risk act to one with clear consequences, disrupting the confidence offenders rely on. However, technology should form part of a broader strategy:

By pairing education with clear technical and legal safeguards, we can reframe the harms generated by tech through digital public good approaches. It is critical to challenge the normalisation of IBSA and heighten perceived risks for offenders.

Strengthening multi-agency responses

Tackling VAWG requires a coordinated, multi-agency response. Image Angel aims to act as a bridge between victims, law enforcement, support services and policymakers. Partnerships are essential to creating a system that is proactive, rather than purely reactive. This is why we have partnered with various survivor-centred charities and tech consultancies such as STISA (Survivors and Tech Solving Image-Based Sexual Abuse) and Eiris in Australia, alongside the Digital Sexual Violence Support Centre in Canada. As the UK continues to prioritise the reduction of violence against women and girls, ethical tech will play a critical role in delivering the Safer Streets mission.

Justice and Emergency Services Programme activities

The techUK Justice and Emergency Services Programme represents tech firms operating in the public safety, criminal justice, and blue light markets. We create strong relationships between members and public sector customers, encouraging industry engagement, and unlocking innovation. Visit the programme page here.