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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

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

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

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "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 beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, 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 nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

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 creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

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

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

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

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, 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 circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, 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 willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.