Understanding Access rights on User Information List

Question

I am here to get some details on User Information List(available at http://domainname.com/_catalogs/users/simple.aspx ), which i did find on the internet.

As it is available under _catalogs, only admins should have access to the list, which happend to me also.

But when i put some script in a content editor and gave the page to a person who has just read rights on the site, the script fetched the data.

Below is the script i used:

<script type="text/ecmascript" language="ecmascript">
    ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(getProfile, "sp.js");
    var _spUserId="domain\ID"
    var context = null;
    var web = null;    

    function getProfile() {
    alert(_spUserId);
        context = SP.ClientContext.get_current();
        web = context.get_web();
        userInfoList = web.get_siteUserInfoList();
        camlQuery = new SP.CamlQuery();
        camlQuery.set_viewXml('<View><Query><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name=\'Name\'/><Value Type=\'Text\'>' + _spUserId + '</Value></Eq></Where></Query><RowLimit>1</RowLimit></View>');
        this.listItems = userInfoList.getItems(camlQuery);
        context.load(listItems);
        context.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, this.onProfileSuccessMethod), Function.createDelegate(this, this.onFailureMethod));
    }

    function onProfileSuccessMethod(sender, args) {
        var item = listItems.itemAt(0);
        var tit = item.get_item('Title');
        if (tit) {
           alert(tit);
        } 
    }

    function onFailureMethod(sender, args) {
        alert('Error: ' + args.get_message() + '\n' + args.get_stackTrace());
    }
</script>

Please could some explain me the things as i am very confused.

Answer 1

Users have permission to read other users details. If you take the non-admin user, and have them click on a user name someone in SharePoint, like the Modified by of a list item, the user can view the editors profile. The actual list view, or URL in _catalogs, might be restricted, but the data within is not.