"User Information List" in SharePoint 2010

"User Information List" in SharePoint 2010 is one of a list which is hidden at site collection level. One can access this hidden list by sitecollectionURL/_catalogs/users/simple.aspx SharePoint admin can consume this list in inforpath forms to retrieve users information and fetch it at inforpath form. when ever a new user is added to sharepoint site collection level not at site level, at first that user will be added to this "User Information List". So, we can consider this list as a repository of all users present in the site. /_catalog/users may show different users on different site on the same site collection We can acess this list through object model as: SPList hiddenUserList = SPContext.Current.Web.SiteUserInfoList; Note that this list contains the users which are deleted from Active Directory. Hence, whenever we delete a user from SharePoint site, its actually a soft delete and that user details still exist in this hidden list.