Different places have different standards for engineers, and any other title. It doesn’t matter that you call yourself an engineer in any case. What matters in some cases are the standards you use; is it licensed by someone or something, or is it something else? That’s what you should be asking. What are the standards used?

You can do engineering without following any official standard, and anyone who do engineering is of course an engineer, so yeah, the protected title thing is just meh.