During this phase you can set the private transponders of your ships to identify themselves on LRS to any empires you choose.  The selected empires will be able to see those ships' classes and your identity as their owner on their LRS.  All other empires will see your ships only as unidentified tonnage on their LRS.  Note that you cannot identify ships to individual empires if those ships transponders are in public mode; you must first switch their transponders to private mode.
 
A ship's transponder settings remain in effect until you alter those settings, either subsequent identifications or by concealing those ships from other empires.  Note that loaded ships are never visible to foreign empires, regardless of their transponder settings. 
 
Allies: Allied empires always identify all of their ships to one another.