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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed 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.

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, 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 an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand 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 took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

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

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has implemented 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 an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said 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 caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened 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 using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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