By Cheryl Miller, From The Recorder

SACRAMENTO — In their fight against age discrimination in Hollywood, actors have found a powerful ally: the California Legislature.

The union representing 160,000 workers in the television, movies and radio industries is backing legislation that would require online subscription entertainment databases to delete actors’ birthdates upon request. The bill, AB 1687, takes direct aim at IMDbPro, which, for $150 a year, allows starlets and celebrities to post their credits and portfolios for subscribing casting directors and other project executives to view.

The problem, said Gabrielle Carteris, president of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, is that hiring agents are using birthdate information also included on the site to screen out artists—particularly women—based on their age.

The practice “has proven to be devastating to actors’ chances of competing for roles and make a living,” said Carteris, who testified in support of the bill at a legislative hearing in June. Carteris starred in the TV series ” Beverly Hills 90210″ in the 1990s.

The bill is opposed by a number of tech organizations, including the Internet Association and TechNet, both of which represent IMDb’s parent company, Amazon.com Inc.

Lobbyists for the groups say that by barring the posting of accurate age information, the bill’s advocates would suppress free speech and target web platforms instead of those actually engaged in age discrimination. They also criticize provisions that would require a database service to also remove an artist’s birthdate “from any companion internet website,” such as the non-subscription IMDb, “under the provider’s control.” And they question the bill’s effectiveness.

“A prospective employer interested in the age of a prospective employee need only conduct a simple web search on any search engine to find the basic information about the individual, nearly always including age,” a coalition of opponents, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in a letter to lawmakers this month.

The bill’s author, Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, has said he has no intent to scrub the entire internet of actors’ ages but IMDbPro is “where people are going to find information about actors.”

“This is Hollywood,” he told a Senate committee in June. “They have a different way of doing things.”

Despite the opposition of the usually politically potent tech groups, AB 1687 has moved easily through the Legislature with mostly bipartisan support. It passed the Senate on Monday and now heads back to the Assembly for a final vote. The governor’s office has not offered a public position on the bill.

Photo via iStock

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