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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background 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 criminal offence with offenders risking 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 impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed 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 an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

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

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes 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 tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists 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 company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend 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 a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform 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'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

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