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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker 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 ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the platform you used 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.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is compounded 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 response 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, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform 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 dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.