Data Science, COVID-19 Pandemic, Privacy and Civil Liberties

The world has seen pandemics, terrorism, hurricanes and other natural and man-made disasters. Each time such an event occurs we discuss technologies that can solve the problem and their impact on our privacy and civil liberties. Such discussions occurred after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and is happening now during the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst human crisis we have faced in a century. This paper discusses the applications of data science to detect and possibly prevent such pandemics and its impact on our privacy and civil liberties.