Certificateless Matchmaking Encryption with Equality Test

Recently, Yan et al. proposed an identity-based matchmaking encryption with equality test (IB-ME-ET) scheme, which was constructed in the identity-based public key system (IB-PKS). IB-ME-ET features mutual pairing between senders and receivers and supports the property of equality test for ciphertexts. However, IB-PKS suffers from key escrow issues where the private key generator (PKG) holds users’ private keys, potentially compromising security and privacy. Fortunately, the certificateless public key system (CL-PKS) resolves the key escrow problem while maintaining the features of IB-PKS, namely, eliminating the need of establishing public key infrastructures. Therefore, our goal is to propose the first certificateless ME-ET (CL-ME-ET) scheme. The CL-ME-ET scheme not only retains the original features of IB-ME-ET but also addresses key escrow issues.