Public Key Encryption with Equality Test from Tag-Based Encryption

Public key encryption with equality test (PKEET), proposed by Yang et al. (CT-RSA 2010), is a variant of public key encryption that enables an equality test to determine whether two ciphertexts correspond to the same plaintext. This test applies not only for ciphertexts generated under the same encryption key but also for those generated under different encryption keys. To date, several generic constructions of PKEET have been proposed. However, these generic constructions have the drawback of reliance on the random oracle model or a (hierarchical) identity-based encryption scheme. In this paper, we propose a generic construction of a PKEET scheme based on tag-based encryption without the random oracle model. Tag-based encryption is a weaker primitive than identity-based encryption. Our scheme allows to derive new PKEET schemes without the random oracle model. By instantiating our construction with the pairing-free tag-based encryption scheme by Kiltz (TCC 2006), we obtain a pairing-free PKEET scheme without the random oracle model. Moreover, by instantiating our construction with a tag-based encryption scheme based on the learning parity with noise (LPN) assumption, we obtain a PKEET scheme based on the LPN assumption without the random oracle model.