Yes, you can work remotely as a data scientist. However, different experts have a different view and few of them think it’s not ethical for a data scientist to work from a remote location. As per their thoughts, data scientists need to work closely with other teams in a corporate and they need to be synced with all the data available across various departments. A lot of companies, who use very sensitive data of customers like Banking and Insurance domain will never want their employees to work from a remote location.
While working from a remote location one needs to be very alert and conscious towards fraud and theft as there are many hackers in the market who are willing to sell your sensitive data to various firms at a very high price. So If the company has the right tech you can easily work remotely. Analytics companies are working to bring out that level of tech in their workforce.
A Data Scientist work mainly involves playing with numbers, encoding, decoding, and visualizing insights to the decision-makers. For the first 3 part that involves crunching and analyzing data, the date needs to be regulated and the authorities need to be extra vigil. In case the date is highly sensitive, working remote can be detrimental to the company and the shareholders.