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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live 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 an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable 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 would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled 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 her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

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

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.