Why does conref-ing a steps element always insert <data></data> tags?

I have a set of steps that I am referencing via conref.  In the source document there are no <data></data> tags.

But every time I conref to the source document the results inserts those tags, the xml line in my resulting file (not the source file) looks something like this:

<taskbody><steps conref="blahblahSourceMaterial"><data></data></steps></taskbody>

This always creates a validation error that the data tags are empty, but I can't find anywhere that indicates they're required when using a conref -- this seems to only happen when I conref the Steps element. I seem to be able to delete these tags in the destination file and it works fine, but it's frustrating to do this.  Is this a bug, or am I missing some knowledge here about how to appropriately conref steps?

Additional note, the <data></data> tags also never display when View > Element Boundaries (as Tags) is set in the WYSIWYG view.