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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation 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 social connection apps, social networks and websites.

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

This covert marker 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 discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

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

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience 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 expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated 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 just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

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