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BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those 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 don't know," stated Madelaine.

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

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality 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 my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me 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 described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes 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 understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

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

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use 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," explained Madelaine.

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

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt 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 inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated 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 circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents 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 tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims 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 invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.