Abstract: Traditional optical remote sensing change detection methods can’t eliminate the error induced by the imaging system and terrain, due to the need for external information from global positioning system (GPS) measurements. And these methods have low measuring precision, biased correlation techniques, implementation difficulties, cannot be applied to monitor surface deformation widely. Co-registration of Optically Sensed Images and Correlation (COSI-Corr) software accurately co-registers images, measures local displacements, and does not require ground control points. COSI-Corr has become a hot spot in the field of surface deformation because of its wide applicability and high accuracy. We discuss the principles and process of analysis of COSI-Corr and introduce some applications of the technique, such as coseismic deformation measurement, the glacier change monitoring, monitoring of landslide activities. We describe the advantages of COSI-Corr. Finally, key problems with COSI-Corr application and its prospects are discussed. We show that COSI-Corr is an efficient and versatile tool. Its accuracy is higher than 1/10 of the pixel size. Additionally, the availability of high-quality optical satellite images is increasing. This approach can be applied to LiDAR and is complementary to InSAR. COSI-Corr method can be widely used to monitor surface deformation.