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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking 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 UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional 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 because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator 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 explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be 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 intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled 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 circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.