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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average tech founder. After repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

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

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one platform 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 the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for 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 guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled 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 just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"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 passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.