Beano -- no, I have never had an occasion to send anything to PADI HQ except money! (Well, I've sent other things too like outlines for classes and forms, but you get the picture.) When I did my PADI Tec40 IDC I had to print out dives to show that I'd done dives below "X" feet for "Y" time but I don't know if that paperwork stayed with the Instructor Trainer or went with the rest of the paperwork to HQ.
Yeah that is exactly when I would wonder about things. As instructors, we are the gate keepers. But when, if ever, does PADI check? When they had the PADI Dive College**, this would have been a question that would have been dealt with by HQ on some level.
I know that DMs dive counts are verified by us, and I know I ask to see actual log books. But I cannot remember anyone ever saying that PADI said to them as instructors that they had to forward things to PADI. I certainly have never been asked for logs of anything by PADI, though I showed my log book to my CD, I imagine. (At least, I assume I did, because I remember my paper log books had basically become solid chunks or cardboard, and wondering how the heck are those going to verify anything?)
So your tech instructor trainer asked for a hard copy of your dives, huh? On one hand I understand that, but on the other hand, I could take your data file and turn it in, or print it out, as mine to someone else. At least with the hard copy log book, we could make some sort of case that someone 'signed' the logbook, but with the Self-Reliant Diver, who is signing those dives? I know plenty of people who have to do creative writing projects to make the dive counts for certain training levels work in terms of logs. And I know firsthand that paper logs are not slihgly reliable both because anyone can write anything, and because paper and water don't mix.
I wish PADI would for once, get ahead of the curve and sort of integrate an online Log program into DiveChek. I would gladly log in as an instructor and verify the dives of my students, and they would not have to bring paper to a dive site, nor risk losing that paper to water damage, or just loss.
** The internet has no memory of the PADI Dive College, or I would link it. I wonder if PADI wants to pretend it never existed.