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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

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

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

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime 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 around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live 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 someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

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

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded 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 survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

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

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, 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 shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

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

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