The Law Library of Congress has put together reports on online privacy laws in the European Union and in a dozen individual countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
The EU Report includes a discussion of the 1995 EU Directive 95/46/EC, 1995 O.J. (L 281) on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data and of reforms proposed in January 2012.
The country reports provide background information and summarize current privacy law in each country covered.
Both reports link to free online versions of relevant documents.