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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "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 required someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged 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 secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform 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 action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

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

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate 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 really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic 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 tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled 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," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.