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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture 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 continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones 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 being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently 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 described.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

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

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use 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," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know 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 perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

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 experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.