Description of the bug:

The 'data' attribute of cc_import appears to have no effect. It's does not even throw an error when pointed to a nonexistent file.

What's the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

Create precompiled library:

echo "int getRandomNumber() { return 4; }" | gcc -x c - -fPIC -shared -o libxkcd.so

main.c

int getRandomNumber(void);

int main() {
  return getRandomNumber() - 4;
}

BUILD.bazel

cc_import(
	name = "xkcd_rand",
	shared_library = "libxkcd.so",
	data = ["some_nonsense_file.doc.exe.psd"],
)

cc_binary(
	name = "exe",
	srcs = ["main.c"],
	deps = [":xkcd_rand"],
)

Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

Ubuntu 20.04

What is the output of bazel info release?

release 6.2.1