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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

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

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

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 sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, 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 practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the changes 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 "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

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

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed 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 system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology 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 novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident 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 support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced 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 reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated 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 images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"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 removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.