Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors' private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript's details.

Editors therefore must not share information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers.

Editors should be aware that using AI technology in the processing of manuscripts may violate confidentiality. Requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings should be politely refused, and editors should do their best not to provide such confidential material should it be subpoenaed.

Editors must also make clear that reviewers should keep manuscripts, associated material, and the information they contain strictly confidential. Instructions to reviewers should include guidance about AI use. Reviewers and editorial staff members must not publicly discuss the authors' work, and reviewers must not appropriate authors' ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should destroy paper copies of manuscripts and delete electronic copies after submitting their reviews. When a manuscript is rejected, it is best practice for journals to delete copies of it from their editorial systems unless retention is required by local regulations. Journals that retain copies of rejected manuscripts should disclose this practice in their Information for Authors. When a manuscript is published, journals should keep copies of the original submission, reviews, revisions, and correspondence for at least three years and possibly in perpetuity, depending on local regulations, to help answer future questions about the work should they arise. Editors should not publish or publicize peer reviewers' comments without permission of the reviewer and author. If journal policy is to anonymize authors to reviewer identity and comments are not signed, that identity must not be revealed to the author or anyone else without the reviewers' expressed written permission. Confidentiality may have to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is alleged, but editors should notify authors or reviewers if they intend to do so and confidentiality must otherwise be honored.

For detailed information, please refer to ICMJE: Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, Updated January 2024 https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/