Linden Lab has taken action by disallowing sexual ageplay activities between avatars, amongst other rule changes to police the issue. Banning the content directly is not possible, as such content can be created by having a child avatar run a sexual animation intended for adults; neither the avatar nor the animation is illegal (or against TOS) on its own, and their combination does not represent a separate asset. The ban on sexual ageplay has caused difficulty due to the full customizability of Second Life avatars; there is no prescribed way to set or determine the age of an avatar, and it is easy to create an avatar which has the height and stature of an adult but appears child-like with regard to body development (or vice versa), and a person's belief regarding the age their avatar appears to be may not match the belief of other people.

A further issue has arisen with the possibility of underage users accessing adult material on Second Life. Although the Terms of Service state that a user must be over 18 to register a Second Life (as opposed to Teen Second Life) account, they also state Linden Lab makes no legal guarantee that all users of the world are over 18. In response to the fears of residents that they or Linden Lab may be sued if an underage user entered any adult area they had been created, an age-verification system was added enabling residents to further limit access to mature content. Virtual landowners may flag their parcels as "adults only" and block those that have not completed this process. Participation in this program is currently voluntary, though there is no assurance that this feature will always be so, and the program has raised further doubts concerning the need to disclose personal information to verify age and the actual effectiveness of such age verification. Finally, limiting access to a parcel only prevents the avatar entering the parcel; its content can still be viewed from outside by moving the camera.

A further greater concern is that, although the age verification process is voluntary, an account that has not been age verified can be instantly locked out of the world if another user files a report to Linden Lab that the owner of the account is underage. The user is then required to complete age verification or remain suspended from Second Life, losing all money and content they had in the world. Since the user cannot log in to Second Life, doing so requires them to contact Linden Lab by fax or postal mail or contacting the Support Portal at Secondlife.com.