Claim against IMDb by actress for date of birth disclosure

It’s widely said that an actor’s actual age is irrelevant to casting. What matters is the age range that they can portray.

We’ve blogged before on this interesting US legal case. Actress Junie Hoang is suing the online film and TV database IMDb for using confidential information (her date of birth) in her online profile without her permission and thus, she claims, in violation of their contractual agreement. She says that revealing her chronological age has reduced her chances of getting film roles.

As reported here by Deadline Hollywood the case raises the issue as to whether the IMDb site policy of posting ages on individuals’ web pages enables age discrimination in the entertainment industry.

Since we last wrote about this there have been a couple of developments:

• Two unions, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild have backed the action that Ms Hoang is taking.
• This week a judge has ruled that the case will proceed to a trial next month.

Some interesting reader comments on the Deadline Hollywood article including the observation that perhaps the claim against IMDb is less significant than changing the attitudes and behaviour of an industry which (allegedly) does discriminate against people based on their age.