The current pandemic is disrupting the lives of many of us. Its ultimate impact, beyond tragically shortened lives, lost jobs, and decimated savings, will take time to understand. Data analytics plays an essential role in the fight against the pandemic, and its role must continue to grow as we adapt to these unprecedented circumstances. However, as we see the benefits of Big Data information, we must not ignore the associated risks. For the private sector, this means increasing the digital footprint of consumers. Social distancing measures are causing a dramatic increase in online activity, taxing the ability of networks to adapt. In the short term, of course, this will translate into much greater use of social media, online research, news viewing, and online shopping. But it's also reasonable to conclude that such activity will become difficult, both because people will be acculturated to more online engagements (for example, people learn to embrace online training comfortably. from their homes instead of gyms and people shopping for clothes online instead of taking crowded public transportation to the city's busy streets and bustling shops). The end result will be a vastly improved digital footprint for all of us that tech giants will want to leverage for valuable insights, allowing them to target customers more effectively and improve their offerings. And this temptation will be even greater if a massive, deep recession takes hold, making identifying top customers and their incentive sales even more critical as disposable income dwindles. For the public sector, the digital footprint of citizens (when it comes to geolocation or other physical activities) may not increase, and may even decrease. But it may be even more important for governments to access these digital footprints, again particularly with regard to the geolocation of their citizens (or visitors) or other physical activities. While there are social distancing and other government-imposed restrictions, governments will want to understand where their citizens are going: are they in a hurry in certain areas, are they spending too much time in stores, etc. But even after such restrictions are lifted, governments will want to analyze the personal data of their citizens to understand where they are going, especially if they are sick so that others they come into contact with can be identified, traced, tested. and treated. And, thinking further, governments will probably be careful not to get caught on their backs by the next disease or public emergency, as they have been with COVID-19. They will want to have as much data available as possible, and the ability to analyze that data for information that can help society as quickly and effectively as possible, before the next emergency. Therefore, it is logical to assume that a medium and long-term legacy of COVID-19 is that more and more swaths of our personal data will be used by the public and private sectors for increasingly powerful analytics in the months and years to come. . It's not inherently problematic. In fact, to the extent that it enables companies to provide better products and services and governments to better deal with the next public emergency, it would be great for everyone. But only if the explosive uses of the data are carried out responsibly. Technology providers can play a vital role in this new environment. By providing companies and governments with advanced privacy-enhancing data analytics technologies, they can enable them to gain powerful insights from their data, but in a responsible manner. In this way, companies can generate insights that generate value from data, and governments can unlock insights from data, without sacrificing the privacy rights of customers/citizens underlying the data. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this could be one of the biggest calls from tech companies. If they can answer this call, and if businesses and governments can have the courage to use their data innovatively and the wisdom to choose the right partners to do so, we all stand to gain.