This article explores whether the human right to science can support the public interest as a legal basis to use and disclose confidential information. The contextual focus is scientific research; the jurisdictional focus is England. The human right to science, as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 15), hitherto has not been invoked in support of a public interest basis for lawful disclosure, but the argument is made herein that there may be scope to develop this jurisprudentially. On grounds of both law and policy, and in line with the underlying rationale of recent UK Government deployment of ‘COPI Notices’ for lawful use of confidential patient information in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, I contend that the human right to science may well serve as a valuable juridical buttress to an overriding public interest justification to lawfully share confidential information. However, this could occur only in restricted circumstances where the public interest is clearly manifest, namely studies researching serious, imminent health threats to the general population that rely on confidential information accessed outside of existing statutory gateways, and not more routine scientific endeavors.

中文翻译：

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保密性、公共利益和科学人权：机密信息何时可以用于造福更广泛的社区？

本文探讨了科学人权是否可以支持公众利益作为使用和披露机密信息的法律依据。上下文重点是科学研究；管辖重点是英格兰。迄今尚未援引《世界人权宣言》（第 27 条）和《经济、社会及文化权利国际公约》（第 15 条）所体现的科学人权来支持合法披露的公共利益基础, 但这里提出的论点是，在法理学上可能有发展的余地。基于法律和政策，并符合英国政府最近部署“COPI 通知”以在 COVID-19 大流行期间合法使用患者机密信息的基本原理，我认为，享有科学的人权很可能成为合法共享机密信息的压倒一切的公共利益正当理由的宝贵法律支持。但是，这只能在公共利益明确体现的受限情况下发生，即研究对普通人群的严重、迫在眉睫的健康威胁，这些威胁依赖于在现有法定网关之外访问的机密信息，而不是更常规的科学努力。