Systems and methods for supporting an identity-based-encryption (IBE) scheme with partial attribute matching capabilities are provided. Plaintext may be encrypted into ciphertext using an IBE public key that is based on an attribute set w. A recipient of the ciphertext may have the attributes in an overlapping but different attribute set w'. The recipient may request an IBE private key for decrypting the ciphertext from an IBE private key generator. After verifying the recipient's credentials, the IBE private key generator may generate IBE private key components based on the recipient's attribute set w'. The recipient may use an IBE private key SK constructed from the IBE private key components to decrypt the ciphertext. Decryption will be successful even though attribute set w' is different from attribute set w, provided that the overlap |w.andgate.w'| is greater than a threshold value.