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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image 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 reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, 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 working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information 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

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested 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 test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. 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, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

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