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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone 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 garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put 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 don't see why those are up for debate," 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 unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, 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 experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

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

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing 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 forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"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," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology 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 hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "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 solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime 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 invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.