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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended 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 realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all 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 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 noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly 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 technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered 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 viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

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 an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm 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 expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added 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 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 images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

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