In addition, sometimes it isn't even "data". The physical structure and chemistry of a particular sequence should not be ignored. A simple example is tRNA[1] that has both data and chemical roles where one side matches the data on the mRNA while the other side binds to an amino acid. Many other examples are known, from purely structural features to numerous types[2] of messaging methods and gene activation/suppression structures.

DNA is not merely "data"; to make everything even more complicated, some of it is probably both data and structure... maybe even both at the same time.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_RNA#Structure

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-coding_RNA