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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure 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 BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," 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 creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service 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 invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," 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 directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on 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 response 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 create solutions, adding: "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, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.