This chapter aims to locate and analyse the growth of CCTV surveillance systems in relation to the central concerns of theorists of modernity. Over the last two decades the debate concerning the transition from ‘modernity’ to ‘postmodernity’ or ‘late modernity’ has pervaded much of the writing on contemporary society. This debate has drawn our attention to a variety of socio-economic, political and cultural changes that are taking place within many ‘advanced’ capitalist and industrial societies. Rapid technological changes, involving computer power and telecommunications infrastructures, which fundamentally adjust space and time barriers are implicated. So too is the process of global economic restructuring which has transformed the urban landscape giving rise to new patterns of social fragmentation, segregation and polarisation. For other writers the defining feature of the postmodern condition is the shift towards a new type of society structured around consumers and consumption rather than workers and production. This chapter is not so much concerned with the issue of whether or not these changes mark a significant break between the modern and postmodern eras. Instead the aim is to draw on these debates in an attempt to identify some of the recent technological, economic and political changes which are propelling the growth and use of CCTV surveillance systems.