A firm credited with helping Donald Trump win the US presidency by using unprecedented volumes of personal data to "determine the personality of every single adult" is contemplating an expansion into the Australian political arena.

The subject of fascination, scepticism and concern in the 2016 US election, Cambridge Analytica was paid millions of dollars to create comprehensive "psychographic" profiles of Americans based on their basic details, consumer habits, social media activity and psychological traits.

Using the OCEAN personality scale - an acronym for openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism - alongside thousands of different pieces of data on every individual, the firm claimed to be able to predict how citizens would vote. It passed the information on so the Trump campaign could target key demographics with finely tuned material playing to their hopes and dreams or fears and anxieties.

"There are no longer any experts except Cambridge Analytica," respected Republican pollster Frank Luntz said of the firm's role in Mr Trump's shock victory. "They were Trump's digital team who figured out how to win."