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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" 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 don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders 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 this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones 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 an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving 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 personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes 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 creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed 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 dating 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 digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

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

"We have validated it, we're partnering 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 deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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