The bulletins are known around the New York Police Department as “personnel orders,” a register of the comings and goings across the sprawling agency, with its 36,000 uniformed members and thousands more civilian employees.

The rundown includes changes in duty, promotions, retirements and deaths, as well as information on disciplinary actions taken against officers. It was sent out almost every day, posted in precinct station houses and around Police Headquarters, including in the upstairs offices of the department’s arm dedicated to public information. There, for decades, journalists had been able to peruse the pages on a clipboard and report the contents.

But in recent months, no new pages were put on the clipboard. And on Thursday, police officials said the orders were no longer available to journalists, noting that the department realized this year that the practice — which had been around so long that many officials could not recall when it began — was in violation of state civil law.

Critics challenged the department’s interpretation of the law and said the decision was troubling because it limited the public’s access to information about whether police officials were holding officers accountable for wrongdoing.