AP: Across US, police officers abuse confidential databases

These systems should have hard and fast audit trails. Look it up -- but your action will be logged. Permanently.

They should also have well thought out and implemented permission sets.

But, log everything is a good and simple place to start.

>"There's no system that could prohibit you from looking up your ex-wife's new boyfriend, because your ex-wife's new boyfriend could come in contact with the criminal justice system,"

It is within the capability of current AI to be able to flag searches after the fact though. A particular officer does a lot more searches for people with no criminal background at all or other patterns that could be identified.