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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime 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 suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, 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 where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required 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, investigation and "consulting experts" 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 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 covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered 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 posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering 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 said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse 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 without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.