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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact 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 an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

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

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "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 been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about 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 networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, 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.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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 commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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