NICOLA Sturgeon has revealed her party had contact with the tainted data firm Cambridge Analytica in the run up to the last Holyrood election.
The First Minister said an external consultant working for the SNP met with the company in February 2016, but refused to name the person.
At the time, Cambridge Analytica (CA) was known to be working with the main Leave group in the EU referendum and the Republican Ted Cruz in the US presidential primaries.
Despite claiming the SNP had shown “complete transparency” over the matter, Ms Sturgeon refused to give any more details.
She also accused Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, raised the issue at First Minister’s Questions, of peddling “baseless smears”.
Blackford admits SNP HQ never told him about data firm contact
Ms Sturgeon pointed out the many links between the UK Conservatives and the UK government and Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, SCL.
Ms Davidson said there have never been contact between the Scottish Tories and CA.
The SNP has been under pressure to detail its contact with CA after one of its former employees told a Westminster committee there had been a meeting with the party.
The firm has been linked to the privacy breach affecting up to 87m Facebook users.
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, admitted he and other MPs had been left in the dark about the meeting by SNP HQ, which is run by Ms Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell.
In heated exchanges at FMQs, Ms Davidson accused the SNP of double-standards for demanding transparency from others, while keeping its own dealings with CA a secret.
She said: “I know that the SNP has raised sanctimony to an art form, but what stinks here is the reek of hypocrisy.
"When it comes to the dealings that others have had with Cambridge Analytica, the First Minister and her party have spent weeks demanding full transparency.
“However, when it comes to the SNP, it took a whistleblower giving evidence to a parliamentary committee before facts began to be dragged out into the open."
Ian Blackford: 'Shady business' of data mining 'goes right to the heart' of Tory party
Ms Sturgeon said the SNP had never worked with CA, whereas its Tory links were “legion”.
She said a former Tory party chairman in Oxford used to run its parent company, SCL; that SCL’s founding chair was a Tory MP; and that a director had given the Tories £700,000.
She also said the UK Ministry of Defence used SCL as a contractor.
She said CA’s former boss Alexander Nix had told a Commons committee in February that the firm had spoken to every political party, and therefore CA had pitched to every party.
She said: “The SNP has been very clear in saying that Cambridge Analytica tried to sell us its services - as I said, that was in the early part of 2016, when a meeting took place.
“However, back then, before any of the concerns that we are talking about now had come to light, the SNP decided that it was not a company that we wanted to work with.
“We judged Cambridge Analytica to be ‘a bunch of cowboys’. If the UK Government had done that, it might not have some of the links that I have read out."
Alison Rowat: SNP top tier should spread message that it's good to talk
Ms Davidson replied: “But, First Minister, it was not the UK Conservative Party that was caught out spreading allegations about others - that was all on you.”
She then asked Ms Sturgeon to prove her transparency by naming the SNP’s consultant.
Ms Sturgeon refused, saying: “I am not going to name somebody who was working on behalf of the SNP and who has done nothing wrong in order that a witch hunt can be carried out.”
She then listed more links between the Tories, CA and its related companies, including a £425,000 donation from the shadowy Constitutional Research Council - run by former Scottish Tory vice-chair Richard Cook - to the DUP in the EU referendum.
Ms Davidson said: “The First Minister says that she has been up front and transparent, but, given everything that the SNP has done over the past month, including keeping its Westminster leader in the dark, to the rest of us it just looks pretty shifty.”
SNP pressed on data firm row as Sturgeon and Blackford at odds
Ms Sturgeon said Ms Davidson had come to the chamber to “spread baseless smears”.
Labour MSP Neil Findlay said the First Minister had still not come clean on the CA meeting.
“Nicola Sturgeon revealed today that the SNP met with this firm in February 2016, months before the Holyrood elections and slap bang in the middle of presidential primary season.
“Only in the world of the SNP could refusing to answer who was at the meeting and what was discussed could possibly be considered transparent."
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