Why can't I use a pointer to a specific type where *interface{} is expected?

I have the following function:

func bytesToData(data interface{}, b []byte) error {
    buf := bytes.NewBuffer(b)
    dec := gob.NewDecoder(buf)
    return dec.Decode(data)
}

I use this for getting struct data in and out of boltdb. What I'd like to do, is change that signature to:

func bytesToData(data *interface{}, b []byte) error

And then I'd like to be able to call it like this (b in this case is a gob-encoded Account)

acc := &Account{}
err := bytesToData(acc, b)

But when I do that, I get an error like Cannot use *Account for type *interface{}.

For now, I've just changed it back to interface{}. But then, if I pass in an Account or some other type directly without making it a pointer, gob throws an error. It seems like this should be checkable at compile time. And given that an argument of type interface{} accepts anything, why doesn't an argument of type *interface{} accept a pointer to anything?