If you're looking for an authoritative guide to data protection laws in different countries, check out DLA Piper's guide, "Data Protection Laws of the World". There is an interactive guide on this site, and also a 509 page report which can be downloaded from the same site.
As you can see the guide provides a color coded map of countries showing the level of protection offered by their laws from heavy to limited.
The site allows you to compare the laws of two different countries side by side in a number of different fields including Collection & Processing, Security, Online Privacy, and Breach Notification.
A comparison between two currently selected countries can also be downloaded as a PDF by clicking on the 'DOWNLOAD current jurisdiction(s)' option.
The EDRM has endorsed DLA Piper's guide, by incorporating it into its site.