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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

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

Little over a year since launching 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 earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe 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 embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand 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 took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted 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.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

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

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her town. 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 shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.