Andy Turpin – Suffolk police tech

Broken Tech Broken Earth

Ipswich Police Station: 159 Princes St, Ipswich IP1 1QJ

Andy Turpin grew up in Ipswich, Suffolk and has seen the impact of the Cambridge Phenomenon as someone living in the neighbouring county. He has worked in IT at the Suffolk Police unit since 1981 and has recently retired. He recalls the first 10 years of working in the police department which saw rapid technological change regarding software such as GPT4085 mini which later developed facial recognition software. Andy still has some of the coding documents used to develop the systems to this day!

Andy is curious to see the developments in tech used specifically within the police force and has concerns over equitable access, data collection and storage. Andy highlights “ I don’t want to seem techno-dystopian, but I do hope that people can learn from the previous developments and improve the ethics of the technology used in the police force, I think reflecting on how things were in the past is the best way to move forward and think about ways to improve the future.”

This story was shared by a volunteer as part of the Broken Tech, Broken Earth project which aims to co-create events with the local community about the social, historical and environmental impacts of technology.  This project is externally funded by the Esmeé Fairbairn Collections Fund as part of the Museum Association.

#FacialRecognition #PolicingTech