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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared 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 an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

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

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered 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 posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has implemented 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 different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable 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 perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance 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 noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.