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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those 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," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, 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 study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

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

This covert marker is encoded within 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 find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert 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

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

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company 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 said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this 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 guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based 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 shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.