Ex-SNP digital chief met Cambridge Analytica

Mr Torrance help the SNP win its historic majority during the 2011 Holyrood eletion

The SNP's former digital media strategist has confirmed that he was the consultant who met Cambridge Analytica (CA) on behalf of the party.

It emerged last week that the meeting was held in London in February 2016 - but the SNP refused to reveal the consultant's identity.

Kirk Torrance has now said he met the data harvesting firm, and had concluded that they were a "bunch of cowboys".

And he said he was glad the party heeded his advice not to get involved.

CA is being investigated over its Facebook data collection methods during the Brexit vote and the 2016 US election, with the SNP putting pressure on other political parties to declare any links to the company.

But SNP MP Brendan O'Hara was left visibly shocked when he was told by former CA director Brittany Kaiser in a Commons committee that the company had held meetings with the party in London and Edinburgh.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon later told Holyrood that one meeting was held in February 2016 - three months before the last Scottish Parliament election - but that no work was done by CA and no money was paid to the company.

The meeting was held before the company's controversial techniques came to light, with Ms Sturgeon saying it was the Conservatives who were "mired in links to Cambridge Analytica" rather than the SNP.

The meeting was first mentioned during evidence from Brittany Kaiser to a House of Commons committee

In a tweet sent on Monday evening, Mr Torrance confirmed that he was the previously unnamed consultant who attended the meeting.

He said: "I'd like to commend the SNP for their professionalism and decency in respecting my confidence as a consultant contractor.

"However I can confirm that I met Cambridge Analytica on 18 February 2016 on behalf of the SNP.

"My recommendation was not to touch the firm with a bargepole, as they were a bunch of cowboys.

"From what is known now about Cambridge Analytica, I am glad the SNP took my advice."

NationBuilder database

Mr Torrance started working for the SNP as its new media strategist in 2009.

He was behind the introduction of its NationBuilder database, which was imported from the US ahead of the party's landslide victory in the 2011 Holyrood election, before leaving the SNP to start his own consultancy.

Speaking at the time, Mr Torrance said the software allowed the party to carry out "sentiment analysis" - whether people's conversations on Facebook and Twitter were positive or negative towards the SNP - in order to individually target potential voters.

The system can immediately identify anyone who types the letters "SNP" into Twitter, who "likes" one of its social media posts or who discusses a candidate or issue relevant to the election campaign.

The party has stressed that NationBuilder used only publically-available information.

The software has been used by other political parties, campaigns and businesses across the world, including both sides in the EU referendum and French President Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche.