A $10 million Morrison government election commitment will fall short of digitising World War II army and air force records, leaving precious documents and photos held by the National Archives of Australia at risk of loss.

The 2019 funding was designed to help preserve about 1 million paper records over four years, but new data shows the shortfall will leave 20 per cent of them unprotected. Photos on unstable nitrate film and included in the records won’t be digitised under the ongoing work.