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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your typical tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality 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 my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating 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 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 said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional 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 somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled 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 only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within 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 required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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