Most items submitted for peer review are done so with the understanding that the process is confidential. For instance, a grant proposal may describe experiments that are planned and that would be carried out under the grant. It is unethical to use this privileged information to advance your own research program or to pass this information along to someone who is not directly involved in this review process. Papers submitted to journals for publication should be treated in a similar fashion. While sometimes the submission may have already been widely distributed in preprint form, the reviewer should not assume that to be the case.

Sometimes reviewers receive a paper or proposal that they may think someone else is in a better position to review. The other person may have a stronger background or have more time available. In some fields it has been common practice for a paper to be passed on to another reviewer (particularly in the case of a faculty member passing a paper along to a post doc or a student). Some journals and most granting agencies, however, make it explicit that this is no longer acceptable practice. In these cases, permission must be secured from the journal editor or the granting agency before the submission is passed on.

Examples of specific instructions on the issue of confidentiality in journal reviews include:

Please do not show [the manuscript] to anyone or discuss it, except to solicit assistance with a technical point. If you feel a colleague is more qualified than you to review the paper, do not pass the manuscript on to that person without first requesting permission to do so. Your review and your recommendation should also be considered confidential. (Ecological Society of America Journals Website )

Do not distribute copies of the manuscript or use results contained in it without permission from the authors. Please feel free to show it to knowledgeable colleagues and to consult them about your review. (Physical Review Website)

It is worth noting in these cases that exceptions to the principle of confidentiality are allowed when additional expertise is needed.