Functional encryption for set intersection in the multi-client setting

Functional encryption for set intersection (FE-SI) in the multi-client environment is that each client i encrypts a set [Formula: see text] associated with time T by using its own encryption key and uploads it to a cloud server, and then the cloud server which receives a function key of the client indexes i, j from a trusted center can compute the intersection [Formula: see text] of the two client ciphertexts. In this paper, we first newly define the concept of FE-SI suitable for the multi-client setting. Then, we propose an efficient FE-SI scheme in asymmetric bilinear groups and prove the static security of our scheme under newly introduced assumptions. In our FE-SI scheme, a ciphertext consists of [Formula: see text] group elements, a function key consists of a single group element, and the decryption algorithm has [Formula: see text] complexity where [Formula: see text] is the size of a set in the ciphertext. Next, we propose another FE-SI scheme with time-constrained keys that limits the ability of function keys to be valid only for a specified time period T, and proves the static security of our scheme. Finally, we prove that the two assumptions hold in the general group model to provide confidence in the two newly introduced assumptions.