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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

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

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," 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 unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently 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 of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," 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 an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks 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 invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around 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 was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.