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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime 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 approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

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

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame 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 committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, 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 this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

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