What happen to the Person/Group Picker field's content when Person/Group is deleted?

Question

In a InfoPath 2007 form, the Person/Group Picker control is often used to select person or group from a SharePoint Site and validate those users against a directory provider.

What happen to the form Person/Group Picker field if the person or group is deleted from the directory provider / SharePoint Site?

Example:
Suppose a form's Person/Group picker field contain a Person name - assuming 'Wendy'. However, Wendy resign from the company and thus the Site Administrator remove her name from the SharePoint Site and the Directory Provider. Will the form's Person/Group picker field still contain 'Wendy'?

Answer 1

Simple answer is Yes. Forms Person picker will still hold 'Wendy' but you will no longer be able to pick 'Wendy'. Username is stored in InfoPath xml file and that is why it is still there.

However I noticed some 'strange' things going on with Person picker in Infopath (I have done some tests with 2010 most likely it applies on 2007 even though 2010 people picker control is improved). After deletion of 'Wendy' (from Site Collection users) if you are using Browse button and Select People dialog you will be unable to find her. But if you type 'Wendy' in text box and click Check names 'Wendy' will be resolved.

General note:

Removing people from Site Collections IMO is not good practice. By default if you remove someone from Directory Provider this person will no longer be able to authenticate on your Site Collection and this is enough. Still this person user info resides on Site Collection because there can be tons of items in need for this specific user info eg. Author and Editor fields. By deleting user info from site collection you will loose this valuable information.