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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your average tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

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

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, 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 professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"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 welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

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

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"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 new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

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

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.