oop - Importance of protected/private in PHP classes

Question

Usually when I see PHP classes, most of the variables and functions are either private or protected. Because the PHP is executed on the server side, I don't understand why you would need these security features. Are these available for security or am I missing something?

Answer 1

Private and protected make sense in the context of visibility, and not security features stricto senso.

Class members declared public can be accessed everywhere. Members declared protected can be accessed only within the class itself and by inherited and parent classes. Members declared as private may only be accessed by the class that defines the member.