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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your average tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

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

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "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 up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

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

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use 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 know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly 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 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, 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 first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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