The civil aviation safety reporting system is designed to facilitate the rapid collection, analysis, and systematization of information on actual or potential safety deficiencies in civil aviation safety, which are not always recorded as part of the mandatory incident reporting system.

The system of voluntary safety messages in civil aviation is not punitive-oriented and provides the confidentiality of communications and the protection of information sources because the objectives of an accident or incident investigation by authorized civil aviation authorities are to determine the causes of an accident or incident and to take actions to prevent them in the future, without the goal of establishing one’s guilt and responsibility. 

The message may request confidentiality of the message itself and the authorship of the message.