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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, 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 view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

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

This covert marker is embedded into 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 find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as 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 legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm 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 expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within 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 required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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