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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your average tech founder. After multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing 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 not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "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 my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined 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 implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark 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 non-consensually, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise 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 hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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