Apple today posted a Q&A to respond to the reports that surfaced last week of location tracking on its iPhones. Two independent security researchers, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, said hidden tracking occurs on Apple iPhones and 3G iPads that use iOS4. A frantic flurry of news stories soon followed.

The first point Apple makes in the Q&A is straightforward and unequivocal: “Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.” The company goes on to admit that, regarding the technology it does use to give mobile users location info, “creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.”

Rather than tracking iPhone users’ actual locations, says Apple, it is “maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location… to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.” The data is stored on users’ phones and backed up in iTunes.

Apple says it will discontinue backing up this data when an upcoming software update arrives within the next few weeks. In addition, the update will reduces the size of the crowd-sourced database that’s cached on the iPhone and delete the cache when Location Services is turned off.

You can read the entire “Apple Q&A on Location Data” at Apple’s press site. And for advice on online security and privacy, see Consumer Reports’ Online Security Guide.