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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

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

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to 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 affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

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

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual 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 needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

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.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives 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 vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.