Chirality is a geometrical property where an object can not be superposed onto its mirror image via either a translational or a rotational operation. Since this type of symmetry is much harder to be maintained than to be broken, chirality exists widely in various macroscopic and microscopic structures. For example, proteins and nucleic acids are built of chiral amino acids and chiral sugar. In addition, DNA double helix, sugar, quartz, cholesteric liquid crystals and biomolecules are also chiral structures. Although molecules with different handedness have the same chemical construction, usually they would possess distinct chemical behaviors. Consequently, as an essential attribute of organism, the chiral representation of matter is of great significance in the fields of pharmacology, toxicology and pharmacodynamics. When electromagnetic wave interacts with chiral materials, special optical activity phenomena will appear, such as optical rotation, circular dichroism, and chiral optical force, which become a powerful tool for material chirality detection. Since the size of chiral molecule is much smaller than the wavelength of excitation light, the chiroptical effect of molecule itself is usually very weak, which greatly limits the accuracy of detection scheme. In recent years, the progress of nanophotonic technology is expected to enhance the weak chiral optical effect between light and matter at nanoscale, making it possible to detect chirality with high sensitivity and resolution. In this paper, the developments of chiral detection technology in recent years are reviewed, which focus on the micro/nano structure based enhanced circular dichroism and optical force effect. Besides, the corresponding applications are discussed. The mechanisms of chirality sensing for various nanophotonic platforms and outlined recent advances and future opportunities of major approaches for biosensing applications are reviewed. Firstly, the microscopic origin of surface-enhanced circular dichroism, as well as the theory of superchiral near-field generation in dielectric and plasmonic substrates are discussed. Secondly, the theory and mechanistic concept of plasmon-coupled circular dichroism in plasmonic nanoparticles, as well as the examples of hotspot-enhanced plasmon-coupled circular dichroism for biosensing applications are reviewed. Thirdly, the use of chiral and achiral plasmonic and dielectric nanoantennas, as well as plasmonic-dielectric hybrid systems for enhancing the optical chirality of biomolecules are reviewed. Fourthly, the theory of the optical force exerted on chiral nanoparticle is introduced. The optical sorting of chiral material with the use of the lateral optical force of complex optical field, the enhanced chiral optical force of plasmonic nanostructure, as well as the characterization of structured chirality using photoinduced force microscopy are reviewed. Finally, the future perspective of this rapidly developing field is presented at the end of this paper.