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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly 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 of my own volition," she described.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

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

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

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

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience 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 believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline 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 misinformed friend or professional 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 a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

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