I think its difficult to find this kind of regulation for SE partially because its so new and not well understood compared to other engineering professions. What is software engineering? The kinds of things that would regulate, say, programming an operating system kernel is not the same thing as someone who makes wordpress templates. Yet both would describe themselves broadly as Software Engineers. What is the difference between the aforementioned wordpress-template-maker and someone building a full web application in React? Where is the line that divides "Engineering" begin and end?
I can see a regulatory body develop certifications around software engineers that develop critical infrastructure or spacecraft, where a single failure is catastrophic, but that expertise might not apply for the person making the interface app for the same piece of software (or working in some other layer of the stack that is not so stringent). Is that person "less" of an engineer? It opens the door to institutional bias towards what is considered "proper" engineering, and much like relying on formal education for hiring, provide a poor heuristic in hiring practices.
However I think that we will eventually get there once we figure out collectively what "place" software has in society, once these divisions settle down and become better understood, then we can figure out how to regulate each properly. I think this could be 50-100 years from now.
I can see a regulatory body develop certifications around software engineers that develop critical infrastructure or spacecraft, where a single failure is catastrophic, but that expertise might not apply for the person making the interface app for the same piece of software (or working in some other layer of the stack that is not so stringent). Is that person "less" of an engineer? It opens the door to institutional bias towards what is considered "proper" engineering, and much like relying on formal education for hiring, provide a poor heuristic in hiring practices.
However I think that we will eventually get there once we figure out collectively what "place" software has in society, once these divisions settle down and become better understood, then we can figure out how to regulate each properly. I think this could be 50-100 years from now.